


She's Everything at Once

by sunteaflower



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, background Tony/Pepper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8552539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunteaflower/pseuds/sunteaflower
Summary: Drabbles revolving around Darcy Lewis. What she sees when she looks at her friends, and what they see when they look at her. Really short chapters.





	1. Jane

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a habit of writing short drabbles that ultimately lead nowhere, so I figured I should compile some of them. There's a very loose timeline- in that they all take place within the same headcanon- but each chapter is a stand-alone.

Jane forgets to live life quite often. Even now that she doesn’t have to worry about where her funding is going to come from or if her colleagues are going to think her crazy; even now that Thor’s back and she’s not constantly consumed with the need to find out what went wrong.

It’s something Darcy, apparently, can’t abide by. Because once a month her ex-intern-turned-S.H.I.E.L.D.-lackey forces her out of the lab. Out of the tower and out of sight of Thor and her experiments and Tony’s hands that she knows are just itching to get at her equipment and make “improvements.”

Jane’s always surprised that she has fun. She’s never been one to go clubbing before, but when she goes with Darcy it feels like this is just an extension of her world. Like she belongs in the throng of people dancing and drinking and enjoying the loud music (the kind that Jane can’t stand any other time of the month). 

She always feels a little bit jealous of Darcy the next day. Jane’s not really part of that world, (with the lights and the laughter and the general feel of just living) she’s just borrowing the moment for a night. Darcy’s entire life, Jane thinks, is one long choreographed dance of living.


	2. Phil

Darcy interacts with him on a frequent basis, and he's pretty sure this is something he should be upset about. 

It starts because she’s still working with Jane Foster, and Thor had made _demands_ of S.H.I.E.L.D. that Darcy not be hidden away in one of their multiple middle-of-nowhere bases.

He thought it would work out best for everyone if she simply signed a few very extensive non-disclosure agreements, and then moved somewhere _not near him_.

Darcy had thought it would be better for everyone if she stayed to make sure Jane didn’t die.

So she stayed, if only so S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't have to suffer through Darcy's daily (and exhaustive) phone calls to check up on "Dear Dr. Frankenstein. No, Jane, I know that's not- Jane. No it's, yeah, I get that astrophysics and-"

But, in staying, she needed someone to report to- which was thrust upon him. He didn’t know what he’d done to make Fury hate him, but he was certain it didn’t warrant this level of pay-back. 

Because Darcy, it turns out, liked to hand in reports that required a code-breaker to decipher. Liked to make the junior agents antsy with her combination of high heels, long legs, and taser. Enjoyed attempting to startle any emotion other than dry amusement and contempt out of him.

Phil was going to have to figure out how to turn her raw determination to cause mayhem into something he could use as an asset, but so far no ideas were forthcoming.


	3. Pepper

Pepper Potts first met Darcy at the coffee shop just down the street from the tower. Pepper’s favorite coffee shop- the only place that never failed to make her preferred cup just right, the place that made the perfect strength of _oh-God-hook-me-up-to-an-IV-straight-up-black-please_ for those days that she’d had an especially trying time with Tony’s eccentricity.

The same type of coffee that Darcy was going through as if they were shots. 

Turns out, working for three scientists, (unofficially, S.H.I.E.L.D. maintained that she was simply working for Jane) one of whom was Tony, was extremely trying (“they don’t even recognize when they’ve gotten so tired that they’re no longer using a pen instead trying to take notes with the chopstick from their lunch! Do you know how difficult that makes it to transcribe their notes?" Darcy had lamented to Pepper once).

It became a thing, them meeting at the coffee shop and mainlining drinks until they could feel the beginning jitters of too much caffeine. It was nice, having another girl to complain to about the men at the tower; or about how annoying scientists were; or what Darcy had done to Phil that week (sometimes Pepper gave her ideas). It was enjoyable to be able to talk to someone who had just as crazy a life as herself, and yet seemed to never feel the stress of it- it calmed Pepper down and soothed her nerves long enough to get her through the week.


	4. Steve

Steve didn’t know exactly when he noticed, just that he did. Darcy Lewis was built like a pin-up model, and while that thought had hit him upside the head and made him feel awkward for an entire week, he came to realize just how funny it was after a while.

She was beautiful, and sometimes she knew it (usually on the days she wore her redder than red lipstick and her higher than high, high heels). And it seemed that Steve was the only one in the world that hadn’t seen it right away. 

He’d take her out to lunch, occasionally, because she kept bothering him about how he wasn’t living in the world if all he did was spend time at the tower or the base. So he’d take her out to lunch or to the farmer’s market, and one time he’d even attempted a movie; and the entire time they were out he’d watch as she didn’t notice the heads that would turn her way. The eyes that seemed to follow her everywhere, even when she was wearing what she called her “frumpy-who-the-hell-cares” outfit. 

People were supremely interested in her, and the fact that Steve was there, right next to her, didn’t seem to sway them at all.


	5. Tony

So Tony Stark was in a committed relationship. He had his Pepper, and he had his science. He also had a firecracker of an accidental lab assistant. She kept telling him that she wasn’t his lab assistant- she was Jane’s. And that just because she sometimes brought him sandwiches and made sure he didn’t die of sleep deprivation, didn’t mean he could ask her to fix his filing system or “just hold this beaker. Just one second. No, I promise it won’t explode on you." 

She was totally his lab assistant though, didn’t matter what she said. It was decided the moment she barged into his lab, short shorts on and toast hanging out of her mouth. Those weren’t the deciding factors, though- the deciding factor had been when she’d fixed him and Bruce with a withering glare, and announced, "you have five minutes to get upstairs to the kitchen and eat something, or I’ll come down here with all of your backdated forms that you still have to fill out, and a cell phone with Pepper on speed dial.”


	6. Fury

She was a pain in his ass, but she liked to torment the new recruits. It was a good weeding process, so he let her be


	7. Natasha

Natasha took one look at her and immediately thought she was a naive little girl. It wasn’t a harsh judgement- it was born out of the knowledge that Darcy Lewis hadn’t seen enough of the world. Hadn’t been forced to make horrible choices in her life; hadn’t found out yet that sometimes you just couldn’t win.

And in this, Natasha slowly found out she was wrong. 

Darcy Lewis had grown up with just her mother. She had been told she would never go to college. She had broken her arm at the age of ten, and while there was never a report filed, it was suspicious that her mother’s boyfriend was moved out of the house the next day. Darcy was a talented dancer, but had been cut from her scholarship because she was at the wrong party with the wrong people.

Darcy Lewis hadn’t run, when Loki had showed up in New Mexico and Thor hadn’t been able to stop him. 

Natasha took a second look at her, and saw her for what she was. A little girl who kept telling herself that if she ignored the bad things, they’d go away. That if she just plowed on with her life, she’d be able to take anything on and she wouldn’t wind up a broken thing.


	8. Darcy- Tony/Pepper

“I don’t have anyone else,” his hand is on her face, his voice is small, and Pepper’s returning smile is just a bit watery.

Pepper knows Tony really means _I can’t make this better anymore_ and Darcy knows she’s not supposed to be seeing this.

“Come make me an omelette,” Pepper says, taking his hand, and Tony knows she really means _I don’t know if I can either_. 

Darcy knows they will, though. He survived capture for three months, and she weathered the terror of seeing him fly a nuke on a one-way trip. If they can do that, then they’re strong enough to make things right.


	9. Clint

He watched her, and he didn’t mean in the creepy stalker way, or in the 'man, how am I ever going to ask you out?’ way, either. He watched people, especially the people he lived with. Especially the people Natasha seemed fond of. 

So he watched her, and he noticed things. He was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to notice them. He was also pretty sure no one else had really noticed them.

Darcy had a habit of ignoring herself. She had cracks in her, where she let self-doubt slip in, where she let emptiness evolve into an art form. She had cracks in her that she tried to fill with people, and sometimes she succeeded, but mostly she just wound up looking more upset.


	10. Bruce

Bruce could see the way she held herself, sometimes. Like she was trying to hold in all her pieces, or like she didn’t know what fit where. It made him sad, to know that the entire time she was taking care of him, or Jane, or Tony (or Natasha, Clint, Phil, Pepper, Thor, even Fury) that she wasn’t looking after herself.

He didn’t really know what to do, though, so he let Tony’s voice fill the air- because if anything, it at least got her to smile.


	11. Darcy- Bruce

Bruce breaks her heart in so many ways; and he’s not even trying- not like her ex-boyfriend had.

She doesn’t know what to do about his suit jacket. It’s worn at the elbows, and fraying at the pocket linings, and he refuses to get rid of it. Tony’s offered to buy him a new one (she’s pretty sure Tony _did_ buy a new one). Darcy thinks Bruce keeps wearing it for sentimental reasons, Tony thinks he doesn’t want to be indebted to anyone. 

They both know they’re wrong.

His glasses keep catching, there’s a screw loose and his face is getting scratched. He’s screwed it back in a couple times already, but three days running it’s loosened and caught in his hair. Or scratched at his ear, or the side of his face, or across his fingers when he fiddles with them. Darcy finally has enough and steals them when he’s not paying attention- she wants to take them in and have them fixed. Apparently though, they’re a complete disaster and need to be condemned. 

Bruce won’t let them go, though, and the next day she sees him super gluing the screw into place. She tries not to cry; it’s a rule- no crying before 9pm.

He’s got singed fingers and bedraggled pants and his shoes are scuffed. His only shirt that isn’t hedging dangerous close to disreputable is the purple button-down, and he seems to think he only gets to wear it on special occasions.

Bruce Banner doesn't want nice things. He doesn’t think he deserves them. And Darcy tries not to throw up when she thinks about how many other things in his life he lets get haggard and unusable. About how worthless you’d have to feel to think it’s what you deserve.


End file.
